Garrosh First Thoughts and Analysis

Garrosh

First Thoughts

and Analysis

“As the new warchief of the Horde, Garrosh is a proud and vicious warrior who rules with an iron fist. His hatred for the Alliance burns like wildfire, and he will stop at nothing to destroy them. By his axe, the orcs will reclaim their rightful glory.”

A warrior built around surviving and initiation, Garrosh is the first tank-oriented hero of 2017 and the first tank released since his Alliance counterpart Varian in November 2016. Since his introduction in the Burning Crusade expansion, Garrosh Hellscream has always been a divisive figure in the World of Warcraft. His character provoked extreme reactions both within WoW’s storyline and the game’s player base. Now Hellscream’s eyes are upon the Nexus, and he brings the same divisiveness to Heroes of the Storm—literally dividing the enemy team with his abundance of displacement and crowd control!

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

Initiation

Displacement CC

Armor synergizes with supports

Strong against sustained damage

Weaknesses

Poor mobility

Vulnerable to burst damage

No hard stuns

Reliant on landing Q/E combos

Abilities

Trait

Armor Up

Garrosh gains 1 armor for every 2% of maximum Health missing.

Modified by talent: Double Up (13)

Basic Abilities

Groundbreaker (Q)

Deal 81 damage to enemies in an area. Heroes hit on the outer edge are pulled toward Garrosh. 8 second cooldown.

Garrosh’s tanking ability is directly tied to his trait. Just like in Hearthstone, the longer a fight goes, the more difficult he becomes to kill. Garrosh may appear close to death but still have just as much effective health as he did when the fight started. He is incredibly hard to bring down without proper timing, and his ability to disrupt his enemies by throwing them around makes coordinating burst damage difficult.

Due to the nature of his trait, tanking on Garrosh feels different than any other warrior. Most tank heroes have to work to keep themselves alive by using their escapes or damage prevention abilities when needed. But Garrosh’s mitigation is built into his trait and is completely automatic, allowing Garrosh to use all of his abilities to start a fight rather than escape from one. Garrosh players will need to rely wholly on positioning for both offense and defense, but good positioning is rewarded by the strength of using Groundbreaker into Wrecking Ball. Garrosh’s Q->E combo has some of the strongest isolation potential in the game outside of Heroic abilities, making his initiation lethal as early as level 1.

Talents

For the first time in Heroes of the Storm, Garrosh’s talent tree includes talents that modify previous talents. His Level 1 options include an active ability, Body Check, which can be built on further at levels 7 and 20. Even without additional upgrades, Body Check shows another trend in Garrosh’s talent tree, which includes options for Active Abilities at every level except 16, up to four extra abilities beyond his basic kit. Into the Fray at level 7 stands out most of all because it gives Garrosh a friendly version of Wrecking Ball to cast on his allies with its own separate hotkey and cooldown.

Outside of his active options, the importance of Garrosh’s Q->E combo suggests two other build paths. Both abilities have talents that lower their cooldowns and allow Garrosh to engage with the combo more often. Usually it's the E build that wins out. With this build, Garrosh’s combo gets maximum impact every time and becomes more disruptive with every tier.

Metagame Analysis

"I am a Warsong chieftain, like my father before me."

While it’s too early to predict Garrosh’s strength in competitive drafts, his position in the metagame of 2.0 feels calculated. Garrosh’s ability to reposition his allies and enemies is very noticeable when played with Genji or D.Va. Garrosh plays well with healing-over-time effects and gives him natural synergy with Stukov too. Garrosh’s release seems to complete a picture that has been building for months.

Though Garrosh has been advertised as a “solo tank,” his particular style of initiation and isolation can still pair well with the harder CC other warriors can provide. On the support side of things, the passive nature of Garrosh’s armor lets him focus on the enemy team instead of his own health bar, putting more responsibility in the support’s hands for keeping him alive. Multiple supports on a team can help Garrosh get more benefit from his armor, especially non-healing options like Tassadar or Medivh. In short, the current meta looks very much like Garrosh’s world, from his perspective, but it remains to be seen if the meta will actually take to Garrosh.

Pro/Streamer Opinions

The aspect of Garrosh that probably hasn't been commented on already is how fun he is. Currently he is by far the most fun and exciting tank to play due to his ability to make plays. Another factor is how many different ways you can use your spells, as well as the skillcap being really high.

He's definitely my fav hero at the moment. You can do so many different things with his kit and make insane plays. I feel like he's good in high-tier HL or in the competitive scene, but other than that, he isn't that good because he requires good teamwork.

I think he will be a top tier pick in the pro scene. I have nothing bad to say about the hero. There could have been small changes for his abilities and design (art-related), but talents and everything feel gucci. This is one of the rare heroes that I am insanely happy for Blizz to release—balanced and insanely fun to play, just not a big fan of his animations.

Overall, I was happy to see Garrosh added to the game. I really liked his character in Burning Crusade, and even though I wasn't a fan of how his character developed, I still think he's a cool addition, as I am always happy to get another orc. That said, I would have preferred Grom. (Hopefully we still get him later.)

I really like Garrosh's kit. Hitting your skillshot feels very rewarding since it usually leads to a flip and kill. I feel like his Decimate ultimate is slightly undertuned, and Bloodthirst isn’t very interesting...but you can't have it all, you know. I'd say he's one of my favorite heroes to play right now even with the thin line on his Q and the targeting on Wrecking Ball. He's just a fun hero to play.

I think Garrosh will excel most on rotational maps like Dragon Shire or Tomb if you draft enough waveclear. I also feel like, with the type of CC he provides, he is very strong on Battlefield of Eternity. He actually also does well on Infernal Shrines with his level 4 talent that resets his W on kills. The more I think about it, I'm pretty sure he's well rounded enough to work on most maps. Garrosh definitely can solo tank, but I think he excels with a bruiser on the team as well. Ideally you want burst damage or CC to follow up on his combos and a strong support since he is a bit softer than most of the other main tanks until he gets the Armor Up upgrade on 13. Some heroes I specifically like playing with as Garrosh are Uther, Abathur, and Medivh. Garrosh has a pretty high skill ceiling, and there is a lot of potential for him to have a big impact in competitive. He may need a few number tweaks to be at the top, but for the moment...with patience, proper positioning, and skill shot accuracy, he can be a force to be reckoned with in the Nexus.

I think, due to small number of tanks, Garrosh might be the hero which should be seen consistently in HGC thanks to his amazing kit. His lack of mobility might make him not useful in some compositions, but he has so many synergies and combos. I cannot wait to see other HGC teams to adapt to him in their matches!

A lot of people wanted Grom, but we all know he will come eventually. Garrosh is a crazily iconic character and was a very interesting Warchief, so I am super happy! His kit is very simple to learn/play but heavily rewards teamwork and positioning.

But the important part is that throwing people is fun and useful. Therefore he is great because we all need to remember that this is a game, and it is meant to be fun.

Several shield users are still meta in all regions, which combo super well with him. And he has solid, punishing engagement abilities, so he should fit in lots of drafts. Anything that supplements his health without actually healing him will get value because the armor will still be in effect on the shield but not get reduced by it. He can solo tank, but that doesn't mean he is limited. I think he will be better in two tank comps with stuff like Arthas, as you can just throw him in and ruin back lines.

He is definitely shaking things up. He is in nearly all games at the moment and especially an early game landed combo is lethal. While burst does work on him, he is still hard to actually finish off due to his trait and being able to throw away any melee chasers. He honestly feels like what Kerrigan should be able to do, just as a tank rather than an assassin.I have mixed feelings about the Body Check talents because they narrow the options if you don't go for it.Feels as if the game is punishing you by not going for it and excluding talent picks as a result but maybe that's just me.Did make me look twice when it was mentioned he is the first new tank since November. Sheesh.

Playing Terran is like flying down a MULE drop in a marine suit, firing a Gauss Rifle